Maternity Leave - The Truth

You have a certain expectation for your maternity leave. I’m currently 16 weeks into mine.

You expect it to be play dates, coffee with friends, walks with the baby in the sunshine, attending baby classes like baby yoga or baby sign. It’s not like this.

Please don’t get me wrong, I love spending every day with my new baby girl. She’s changing, growing and learning. But.

Maternity leave is lonely. It is. It’s isolating.

Yes, you’ll go out for coffee. With your baby. Your friends no doubt work and so are usually only available on a weekend - but that’s their time off, their time to be with family and quite rightly so.

Go out for a nice walk, I tried this but completely misinterpreted the weather forecast and ended up drenched, 1 mile from shelter. My coat went over the pram. Will judge it better next time.

Attending classes, now these are around and are varied, but as we all know, babies work to their own schedule. If they don’t feel like holding a rattle while mummy pretends to know the nursery rhymes the over enthusiastic instructor is acting out - they simply won’t do it. You’ll leave more flustered than before and wondering why you didn’t just stay home and watch ‘This Morning’ in your pjs.

Speaking of Pjs, I can spend a lot of time in my pjs. All day if I want. Don’t judge. The joy of maternity leave is that your primary focus is your baby so you can stay home all day, if you want. Relax. You need to.

Take a random Wednesday, commit to it. A relaxing bath is out of the question, but if you can benefit from a quick shower whilst baby sleeps, do it. Then, change into a fresh set of pjs and take comfort on your sofa. Just you and your little one. No one to answer to, nowhere to go, just you two.

You need to know that your friendship circle will change. Friends you’ve not spoken much to will come out of the woodworks and lend you a helping hand or a friendly ear. Some friendships grow even stronger. Friends you thought would be there for you, just aren’t. And that’s ok. People change. YOU change.

Don’t expect everything to stay the same. Because after the birth of your baby, your life, simply put, will never be the same. It will be so much more than before.

Enjoy your maternity leave. Enjoy it. It’s not forever, you will soon be back at your office desk, looking forward to your lunch break so you can spend your time looking at pictures on your iPhone of your baby.

I intend to enjoy the next few months and will try to remind myself of the above. So, for now, I’m going to put my phone down and take some cuddle time with my Lily.